Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool called in Aramaic, “The House of Loving Kindness,”… Hundreds of sick people were lying under the covered porches—the paralyzed, the blind, and the crippled—all of them waiting for their healing. For an angel of God periodically descended into the pool to stir the waters, and the first one who stepped into the pool after the waters swirled would instantly be healed.
Among the many sick people lying there was a man who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.. When Jesus saw him lying there, he knew that the man had been crippled for a long time. Jesus said to him, “Do you truly long to be well?”
The sick man answered, “Sir, there’s no way I can get healed, for I have no one to lower me into the water when the angel comes. As soon as I try to crawl to the edge of the pool, someone else jumps in ahead of me.”
Jesus said to him, “Stand up! Pick up your sleeping mat and you will walk!” Immediately he stood up—he was healed! So he rolled up his mat and walked again! Now Jesus worked this miracle on the Sabbath. [John 5:2-9, ESV]
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Lately, Jesus has asked me the same question he did of the man by the pool.
“Do you actually want to be healed?”
In this, Jesus asks: “Do you trust Me? What lengths of faith will risk to release your familiar for an upgrade?”
Frankly, I don’t know what “healed” looks like.
How will it come? When will it come? Will it come? And if it does, how will it manifest?
I love how Jesus interacts with the man and his uncertainty in John 8.
This man expected his healing to arrive only through the help of others dipping him into the pool to encounter the angel’s gift. However, little did he know that he was in the context and place for his healing to come, just not how he initially expected it.
I’ve imagined how my “healing moment” might come for many years and in many ways: through a sudden and miraculous laying on of hands at church, during the time I attended a healing service or at multiple intercessory prayer meetings- even when I took and stopped taking medication.
But none of these moments have been the case for me (yet).
And yet, in this, what does “being healed” look like? How do we pray for it without marrying ourselves to the image of one form of it?
When we ask for it, what do we mean by “healing?”
How would you know that you were healed?
The enemy whispers into this fear of uncertainty regarding “the other side” of healing:
“Why would you surrender a life you’re used to, comfortable with, all for a life you have no context for?”
At times, I’ve wanted to maintain the lifestyle I’ve had in my pain (i.e. a perceived certainty, an identity as “broken”) with the benefits of instant healing.
It all comes down to this: Am I actually willing to let go of what I know for what He has?
“Lord, you’re asking me to pick up my mat and walk, yet I’ve never walked before. I don’t even know how to. How could you ask me to walk when I can’t even stand?”
The enemy thrives of disconnection and disunity.
The easiest way for him to accomplish this is through miscommunication.
When two people hold differing definitions of a concept, it increases the odds for disconnection and misunderstanding.
Exploring and defining your expectations of healing before God is a way to strengthen the firewall of your connection and faith in His goodness.
If we hold Him to a standard or expectation that He is not (i.e. “He must be my instant Healer or else He doesn’t want to heal me/won’t heal me”), you will always be disappointed with an idea of Him that isn’t Him.
God knows what we are asking for regardless of our wording or communication, yet He wants awareness for and within us so that our bond with and trust in Him is strengthened.
Again, wrongly defining God’s heart for or way of healing is one of the enemy’s foundational tactics to launch us far from intimacy and into the snares of unbelief, bitterness, and more pain.
Holding onto our personal, human definition of healing is a form of holding onto control.
Control is the unwillingness to relinquish what we think is best in surrender to God’s heart for us and our process.
Control and healing are intimately connected.
Some would rather cling onto what wounds them simply because they are familiar with it; all this instead of releasing the painfully familiar and stepping with faith into a life of uncertainty.
Made manifest:
Control is man’s passivity and woman’s dominance in Genesis 2 and 3.
Control is “each man for his own.”
Control is doubt that the Lord won’t come through for us, so we have to do it ourselves.
Oftentimes, control sneakily appears like responsibility, wisdom, and even servant heartedness.
For example, while taking medication for mental illness is wisdom and faith for some, it could be a matter of impatience and control, even disobedience, for another.
Control is a matter of the heart, which makes it a conversational evaluation between you and God alone.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).
Only by daily dwelling in the Secret Place and meditating on His Word with His Spirit as our guide can our true intentions be identified and rightly aligned.
In usurping control, we eliminate countless opportunities to be loved and led.
Maintaining a false sense of control communicates to God that we will not soften our hearts nor surrender our agendas. This all stems from expectations we hold (consciously or unconsciously) regarding our disappointment and fear if we surrender the driver’s seat.
Self-protection and its tendencies don’t keep us safe- they rob us of authentic connection and the ability to receive.
Control is often the largest factor between you and the life of freedom God has for you.
No- not the diagnosis nor the person nor the circumstance. If that were the case, we would be powerless and incapable of ever entering freedom. And why would God invite us into healing if He knew we could never experience it?
Control ropes us into agreements with bondage and disables us from a healthy response to and relationship with the difficulties of life. It prolongs and delays forgiveness and connection; it detracts from the fullness of celebration and love.
The “solution” to control isn’t to try harder, confess more, or grow painfully self-introspective. These pseudo-solutions are still a line of thought flowing from the root of control with ourselves.
No, freedom from control arrives when we adopt and integrate the mentality of the Beloved into our being. A Beloved who has a kind, safe Father who always protects and provides.
The Secret Place then becomes a Lifestyle instead of a moment in time, enabling us to see and walk clearly.
During this time on earth, amidst constant visible uncertainty, control must be forsaken in order for the full fire of revival to be released on the earth.
And to go even deeper here, I believe God considers fear to be the most grievous, evil forms of control because of what it’s really communicating: “I forfeit my identity as the beloved and come into agreement with the belief that I am not protected, not provided for, and that God is not worthy of my trust, nor capable of coming through for me.”
Fear discredits God’s power and blinds us from our freedom to live from a place of peace and wisdom.
So when it comes to healing, Jesus invites us, “Pick up your mat and walk.”
In this is also the invitation, “Lay down your control.”
Picking up requires a laying down and laying down invites us to pick up. What you lay down and pick up is your choice and yours alone.
This is the glorious exchange of control for freedom.